If Bosh DID tank, then why all that energy and ... trying to sign him.

Not sure what you mean. The time when Bosh really started downhill was after the deadline. Colangelo was helpless at that point even if he knew Bosh wasn't coming back. His best bet, whether he knew Bosh was gone or not, was to maintain that the Raptors wanted him and were in the hunt. He had to protect his leverage for trades. Colangelo was working for the team, Bosh was working for himself. Not sure how Colangelo's integrity can be called to question here...

I heard the interview and it felt... unseemly. It just felt like the GM was trying to pass of blame and talking about "Well, if this didn't happen and that didn't happen...". It really felt like The GM was saying "Hey, just had some bad breaks! Nothing I could do."

First off, no one was caught unaware of this. Jalen Rose, of all people, was screaming last offseason that there was no way Bosh would stay. There's been whispers that Bosh, Wade and LeBron was cooking something up since 2008 (Hell, since 2006!). The GM is supposed to have his pulse on everything and if he was truly hoodwinked by his employee, then I think that's says more about him than Bosh. And by his own admission, he talked about how Bosh changed after the all star break and how voices were in his head. Well, if he was a problem then, why not trade him? Why wait and see this scenario play out. The whole interview felt like The GM was just dry snitching.

I don't know whether or not Bosh 'tanked' the last half of the season (gun to the head, I would say yes and if he did, well, you can knock me over a feather, a pro athlete not giving his all 100% of the time on a .500 team, I AM SHOCKED), but The GM sold this team with the fact that if Bosh left or was injured, that they could survive that and it's pretty obvious that they couldn't and the team that The GM put together was flawed and THAT is on him. This culture of "Star Player Leave And The Team Subtly Throws Him Under The Bus" just seems... dishonest and more about covering his a**.

We talk about the loyalty that players should show to fans and to the organization, but these players quickly find out that there is no loyalty there. Fans give unconditional love and our emotions get run over when a player leaves and get played on when a player wants to re-up... but our love only extends on how hard they defend on the court or their 3 pt %. As soon as they have a 6-24 shooting game or an extended slump, we call for them to be traded or don't be resigned when the contract is up, no matter how much the player likes Toronto or wherever he is. Witness Reggie Evans, who name was being chanted in pre-season and throughout the season we waited for him to bring the 'toughness' this team needs... and as soon as 5 games in, there's were calls to bench him, as he 'didn't know his role' and 'was a liability on offence'. I mean, does anyone REALLY care what happens to him? Or Rasho? Or Marcus Banks? I 'hate' Jose Calderon as much as anyone, but all he's done is profess his love for this city and this organization and show a willingness to get better and play whatever role is set out for him, and The GM trades him away, get it's reneged and now he's unsure where he's going. If you were Jose, would YOU have any loyalty to this organization? Would it be easy for you to go to back knowing that they didn't really want you here, if they had their druthers? And don't give me the "He's making 9 million a year, he should be proffesional about it". He's still a human being, therefore flawed and we can't expect him to be a better person because The GM handed him a lot of money. Plus, we as fans, owners (looking at you Dan Gilbert) and GMs (looking at you David Kahn) don't have much perspective on these things, why should we expect players, who've been coddled all their lives and never had a 'real' job, to have this?

The bottom line is, I just feel like this has been a mass failure by the organization to do right by the fans and the star player. It's not like we, as fans, haven't gone through this before and after a time, it's time to stop blaming the players and for the organization to look at themselves and their philosophy. To go a radio station and say these things when you didn't do enough to take care of 'your house' and to not build a team to give enough of a basketball reason to keep you around beyond 'Hey, we can pay you the most!' just feels like a guy fighting for preservation of his own job. Everyone just come out looking bad.

(BTW, the funniest part of that interview was him saying that Linus Klieza was the best post up player that Toronto had. If that doesn't tell you how much trouble this team is in...)

"Bosh gave everything he had for six-and-a-half seasons"

Raptors president/general manager Bryan Colangelo chose his words carefully during a Monday interview with the FAN 590’s Bob McCown, but clearly is not pleased with the way things turned out with Bosh.

Colangelo intoned that Bosh took a long time to return from injury even though he had been medically cleared and that he started thinking ahead to his future to the detriment of the Raptors.

“Despite limited swelling and any excessive damage on an MRI, he felt like he needed to sit for six more games ... I’m not even questioning Chris’ injury. I’m telling you he was cleared to play subject to tolerance on his part, and the tolerance just apparently wasn’t there and he chose not to play,” Colangelo said.

“The fact that our season was spiralling downward and we were hoping he’d come back sooner and we were also dealing with a few other things at that point ... we were really struggling there.”

Colangelo went on to elaborate:

“Whether he was mentally checked out or just wasn’t quite into it down the stretch, he wasn’t the same guy. I think everybody saw that, but no one wanted to acknowledge it.”

“At the same time, I never felt we were quite in the game (in terms of signing Bosh to a new contract). There was too much out there, too much built up for him to take an easy out here, and he decided to do that.”

Colangelo also said Bosh was hard to build around.

“We tried in vain to put pieces around Chris. Different pieces, different styles. It didn’t work out.”

“No matter what type of player we brought in, it didn’t seem to have the right mix with him as that centrepiece.”

Other then the timing of all of this being revealed, that’s the only issue this corner has with Colangelo’s statements. If you couldn’t build around him, you should have traded him, don’t use it as an opportunity to bash Bosh. Bosh has created enough ammo in that regard by himself.

No matter how Bosh tries to spin things, it’s clear he, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James thought seriously about playing together long ago and they likely finalized those plans at the all-star break.

He was not going to be a Raptor next season, so his thinking clearly was why continue to run through walls for the team and put his $100 million-plus South Beach payday at risk?

It’s easy to see why his general manager would have issues with that as well as his recent statements which said he has “seven years to make up for,” but we’re not sure he should become Toronto’s public enemy No. 1 the way Carter and McGrady once were.

Sleepz you're all alone here man. Have you read all the other comments from sane people, be it RuPaul haters or neutral guys like Apollo. RuPaul was a stat padder who quits on his team at a crucial time when he was cleared to play and the team had been playing well. In addition RuPaul never ever established great friendships here with any of his teamates and never ever reached out to make anyone else feel comfortable or make them better. Rupaul was and is about RuPaul and BC and Toronto got screwed by him. He was and is classless or he would have had the class to have talked it through and been fair to the team that promoted him so heavily over the years to make him appear like a star so he could get the money he makes today. Let's not forget what RuPaul just said in his interview in Miami where he says he padded his stats and still did not make any of the three all NBA teams. "What does a guy have to?" do he said. He blamed it on being in Toronto, instead of taking the blame on the chin whic he's never done. He's never been man enough to accept responsibility for anything but stat padding, including his own illegitamate kid. He is a loser and I and many many others are so glad to see his sorry lady ass gone.

I'm not concerned if others disagree with me especially you. I actually prefer when you disagree with me as it serves to validate my sanity.

You can say whatever you want and have your opinion, which you are entitled to. I'm not sure what a stat padder is but the fact that you use this term so often obviously indicates you have a firm grasp of what this type of player is, except your arguments never focus on ball or have any proof of any of your accusations. They focus on personal matters that make you look like a bigger woman than 'Rupaul'. Where and when has anyone in the history of the league admitted to 'stat padding'? I still don't know what it consists of but apparently the more you say something you more you think it makes it come true.

You guys can keep on letting Colangelo get you riled up to distract you from the real upcoming issues of this team. He has you bent on a player that doesn't play here anymore but yet no one can tell me why the team sucked so poorly when Bosh was out. Shouldn't they have been decent with all the talent accumulated by BC? You guys are telling me about "friends and relationships" which makes me laugh. This is sports and it's a business you don't need to make best friends with players on your team and even if that was a concern Bosh and Jack aren't bredrens? Give it a rest. You're all looking for something to moan about and you will have plenty of time for that once the season starts.

Pizza, when you have some b-ball related things to discuss I will address you in the future, but for now you are beneath responding to cause I don't really know what to say to non-related ball posts. You talk about "illegitimate" kids instead of basketball which indicates how wack you are. Then when a blogger brings up something about Bargnani and pasta you get upset, lol. Your arguments are illegitimate. Love more, hate less.

Sorry Colangelo but you gambled on Bosh was staying in Toronto and you failed. Now that he is gone you are telling everyone what everyone already knew on Bosh but when Bosh was still around you made excuses for him and promises to re-sign the guy.

Should have traded him as soon as he refused to sign the contract extension last summer.

Shame on you Mr. Colangelo. It's not easy to build around Bosh? Yep, if you trade for scrubs like Hedo, aged players like Marion and pick guys like Bargnani(no problem with him, but the raptors could have done better right?) maybe it makes things a bit harder. Was there any other All-Star caliber player around in toronto the past years than Bosh? No! Marion, O'Neal were out of their prime. Can you criticize a guy, who has worked his ass of for 7(or say 6.5) years for basically nothing? For an average team, without perspective? (compare the young gunz+il mago to the bulls or even the nets) It makes me feel sorry. Obviously CB4 knew what he did.

dirtymikeseaver: "And by his own admission, he talked about how Bosh changed after the all star break and how voices were in his head. Well, if he was a problem then, why not trade him? Why wait and see this scenario play out."

Check your facts first and read other posts more carefully: trade deadline had already past. After the deadline, Bosh was in the driver's seat trade-wise and BC merely a passenger in the backseat reacting to whatever Bosh did.

As the driver, Bosh said that he would keep the Raptors abreast of his decisions...fair play to an organization that has made you their star. Bosh's actions, however, contradicted his words as he chose to hold everything close to his vest, esp. during the week of free agency, thus putting the organization into scramble mode to figure out the myriad trade possibilities and scenarios out there rather than having more focused efforts on a smaller number of teams to work out the best deals for the Raptors...as Bosh had intimated.

hahaha raptor4ever, i think you just like playing the villain role, you want to join forces with sleepz and go against the world!

Not At all. I am looking at this logically and not like a HATER. Plus, this is not against the WORLD .
People around the NBA are much smarter than some of the posters here who are so eagerly buying the BS that BC is selling them.

As I said, this will be over before the end of Nov, when the team starts 0-10 and the true face of BC will be clear to everyone.

At the break the Raptors were playing great, were one of the hottest teams for the two months before the break and had around 30 wins. After the break the team had their winning spirit broken and things went downhill quickly. This coincided with Bosh having a noticeable change of demeanor along with not playing well when he did come back. I just can't point as much blame at the coach, other players or BC when it was Bosh who clearly stopped giving his all when the rest of the team was trusting and counting on him. There is a lesson to be learned from this that this years Raptors will benefit from.

He played great in his first game back. They went into a slide because the rest of the team sucked and they didn't have him to rely on.

I heard the interview and it felt... unseemly. It just felt like the GM was trying to pass of blame and talking about "Well, if this didn't happen and that didn't happen...". It really felt like The GM was saying "Hey, just had some bad breaks! Nothing I could do."

First off, no one was caught unaware of this. Jalen Rose, of all people, was screaming last offseason that there was no way Bosh would stay. There's been whispers that Bosh, Wade and LeBron was cooking something up since 2008 (Hell, since 2006!). The GM is supposed to have his pulse on everything and if he was truly hoodwinked by his employee, then I think that's says more about him than Bosh. And by his own admission, he talked about how Bosh changed after the all star break and how voices were in his head. Well, if he was a problem then, why not trade him? Why wait and see this scenario play out. The whole interview felt like The GM was just dry snitching.

I don't know whether or not Bosh 'tanked' the last half of the season (gun to the head, I would say yes and if he did, well, you can knock me over a feather, a pro athlete not giving his all 100% of the time on a .500 team, I AM SHOCKED), but The GM sold this team with the fact that if Bosh left or was injured, that they could survive that and it's pretty obvious that they couldn't and the team that The GM put together was flawed and THAT is on him. This culture of "Star Player Leave And The Team Subtly Throws Him Under The Bus" just seems... dishonest and more about covering his a**.

We talk about the loyalty that players should show to fans and to the organization, but these players quickly find out that there is no loyalty there. Fans give unconditional love and our emotions get run over when a player leaves and get played on when a player wants to re-up... but our love only extends on how hard they defend on the court or their 3 pt %. As soon as they have a 6-24 shooting game or an extended slump, we call for them to be traded or don't be resigned when the contract is up, no matter how much the player likes Toronto or wherever he is. Witness Reggie Evans, who name was being chanted in pre-season and throughout the season we waited for him to bring the 'toughness' this team needs... and as soon as 5 games in, there's were calls to bench him, as he 'didn't know his role' and 'was a liability on offence'. I mean, does anyone REALLY care what happens to him? Or Rasho? Or Marcus Banks? I 'hate' Jose Calderon as much as anyone, but all he's done is profess his love for this city and this organization and show a willingness to get better and play whatever role is set out for him, and The GM trades him away, get it's reneged and now he's unsure where he's going. If you were Jose, would YOU have any loyalty to this organization? Would it be easy for you to go to back knowing that they didn't really want you here, if they had their druthers? And don't give me the "He's making 9 million a year, he should be proffesional about it". He's still a human being, therefore flawed and we can't expect him to be a better person because The GM handed him a lot of money. Plus, we as fans, owners (looking at you Dan Gilbert) and GMs (looking at you David Kahn) don't have much perspective on these things, why should we expect players, who've been coddled all their lives and never had a 'real' job, to have this?

The bottom line is, I just feel like this has been a mass failure by the organization to do right by the fans and the star player. It's not like we, as fans, haven't gone through this before and after a time, it's time to stop blaming the players and for the organization to look at themselves and their philosophy. To go a radio station and say these things when you didn't do enough to take care of 'your house' and to not build a team to give enough of a basketball reason to keep you around beyond 'Hey, we can pay you the most!' just feels like a guy fighting for preservation of his own job. Everyone just come out looking bad.

(BTW, the funniest part of that interview was him saying that Linus Klieza was the best post up player that Toronto had. If that doesn't tell you how much trouble this team is in...)

ok, first of all, you cant make a trade just because a sportscaster starts spreading rumors that he believes you franchise player will not re-sign. you have to hear it straight from the horse's mouth as they say. bosh should have had the audacity to tell BC, hey, thanks for the 7 years but im not coming back next year.

personally, i dont think bosh tanked. and neither does BC. what he merely was saying that the supposed injury was not severe enough for him not to play. BC is saying that that time that bosh sat down was crucial for the team, and that it would probably have gone another way if bosh chose to play. if BC thought bosh tanked, he wouldve said that bosh never played his heart out since the beginning of the season, but he didnt say that.

i do agree with your point with the loyalty part, but that is not the issue here. the raps were loyal to bosh from beginning to end. they had a chance to trade him, but they didnt.they give him a max extension even though he never took this team past the 1st round. the raps did all they can, with limited resources and a so-so reputation to build a good team around bosh, and gave him input on who they should get. i mean when they let sam go, why did they get triano when there were a bunch more experienced coaches in the market? because bosh had a really good working relationship with triano. and bosh knows he can manipulate triano. it clearly shows how loyal the team was to bosh in this case, but i dont think bosh reciprocated it. i understand the whole "i got to do whats best for me" argument on bosh's part, but the least he could do was tell this team that he was leaving way before everybody did, a show of respect to a franchise that gave you everything in your 7 year career.

like i said, im siding with BC here. he did trades that bosh knew about (im sure he approved coz he didnt ask for a trade after those transactions were completed), the franchise did everything for Bosh and now BC is the one coming out as the villain.

btw, he said with the current roster, kleiza is the best post up player they have. he was just being honest. if he said calderon was the best post up player on the current roster, then that would stir you up even more huh?

He played great in his first game back. They went into a slide because the rest of the team sucked and they didn't have him to rely on.

This is a little silly, what's your point exactly? A team built around Bosh went into a slide because Bosh couldn't be relied on? If Nowitzki doesn't perform, what happens to Dallas? What about last year's Cleveland team that won 60 games with LeBron? Whenever you build around a player, when they're "off on their game" or injured, the team will struggle. Even the Lakers struggled without Kobe, and they still had Ron Artest, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, and Andrew Bynum.

He played great in his first game back. They went into a slide because the rest of the team sucked and they didn't have him to rely on.

i agree with you on this one sleepz, im not sure where colangelo got the part that bosh's head was not in the games after he came back from injury, he pretty much did the same things numbers wise. maybe he was referring to bosh not connecting with the other players on and off the court...who knows....

This is a little silly, what's your point exactly? A team built around Bosh went into a slide because Bosh couldn't be relied on? If Nowitzki doesn't perform, what happens to Dallas? What about last year's Cleveland team that won 60 games with LeBron? Whenever you build around a player, when they're "off on their game" or injured, the team will struggle. Even the Lakers struggled without Kobe, and they still had Ron Artest, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, and Andrew Bynum.

A haven't seen a team 'built' around Bosh other than the one that won the division (the weak division).

There's a difference between building around or building with. Colangelo had his own vision and Chris was a part of it. He never completely built around Bosh, even though BC's gone to great lengths to argue this to the fans.

w/e man I didn't want us to make the playoffs anyways only to be swept in 4. Think about it this way, we got Ed Davis for nothing... one step closer to building a contender. Personally I am glad Bosh is gone (too bad we got nothing for him tho), with him we could only be a mediocre team, but now we can tank and get a real franchise player...

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.. You saw how we played at the end of the first half of the season, we wouldn't have gotten swept. How is this one step closer when we're minus our franchise player in Bosh, what are we without him? A very much less than mediocre team. Tanking doesn't get us anywhere.. Franchise players don't come around every year like a lot of you think.

But the fact is, Bosh wasn't in it the second half of the season. Everyone knows it. BC's telling the truth, not trying to bash on Bosh.